A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 Advice for a complete newbie? :)

Hello there, I have been readng this board for a few days and every here seems so helpful. I have just started my very first adventure into our first yard and this seems like a great resource.

My main problem is that I cannot find anywhere that shows me what my plants are supposed to look like as they mature....so I dont know if mine are OK or not.

Right now only my peas and sunflowers have come up and became visable. How do I know if they are normnal or doing well?

Below is a link to some picture I took out in my yard today. There are a few irrelvant ones, but not too many (the ones of the yard will be a before and after when we put down sod).

Garden Photos

If anyone wants, I would love some objective advice on my plants.

Veggies and flowers are a great relaxation activity for me, I just want to make sure they grow

Marina-

I didn't look at every pic, but most stuff looks great. I did see one pic of a pea that might have had leaf miners...hard to tell. You might do a forum search or Google image search for that and see if you think so.
Welcome to the forum!

All your plants look good to me.
The only future problem I can see is at the fenceline. On the other side is lawn and it will creep back into your beds. You'll be weeding like crazy. I would put some sort of lawn edging to hold it back.
Take advantage of that frnce too. There are all kinds of climbers you can plant.

Welcome Marina. I agree with Dave that you may have a leaf miner problem on the peas. Otherwise, everything else looks great. The sunflowers, petunias, gebera daisies all look great. The soil looks very good. You may want to look into starting a compost pile. Nothing better for your soil.

Thank you to you guys for replying I appreciate it. The peas were exactly what I was worried about because of the white "lines" over their leaves. Its as if they were dry or something or forming a vien or something.

The only leaf miner pictures I could find were on tomato plants, but it seems to be similar. Though none of the sites were specific about how to treat the problem. Any suggestions? will the leaf miner completely kill the peas or should I pull them out of the ground?

Sorry for all the questions.

As for the fenceline, I think we're planning on some sort of wooden borden between on the outside of the fence. And I have been thinking of a compost pile, sure would be nice not to have to buy the commercial stuff.

Thanks

I have no direct experience with leaf miners Marina, but from what I've read, their damage does not kill the plants. Its actually the larvae that causes the lines on the leaves.

http://cru.cahe.wsu.edu/CEPublications/eb1372e/eb1372e.pdf

Thanks John! I am going to head down to a nurseries this morning and see if there isn't something that can be applied to them.

Something about (hopefully) eating peas possibly covered in larvae or some flies makes my skin crawl Thanks for the link....it told me exactly what I needed to know. I just can't believe the garden is already diseased with something! Yikes

Hi Marina, you can spray leaf miner with a whiteoil or pest oil to prevent the parent moth from laying the eggs in the first place, but the larvae are under the 'skin' of the leaves and so spraying existing ones is a waste of time. Don't be concerned about them. They won't do any real damage and won't go onto the actual pea pods. They will leave once they have emerged and will just make the leaves a little wrinkly. Big deal.The peas themselves are not at risk at all so you'd hardly be eating peas covered in flies.
I'm sure the nursery will, however, give you a wonderful chemical to try though.

Thanks again everyone. I took one of leaves to a local nursery and they informed it was some sort of mildew caused by the leaves being wet and baking out in the hot VA sun.

They gave me a fungacide to try, they told me it wouldnt solve the problem on the leaves already affected, but should prevent the further spread of it unto other leaves. And also that the peas would still be safe

Thanks for your post longy I guess I was overreacting a bit I'd hate to see my first attempt at growing something turn into a huge failure!

To help with the fungal disease, which is probably downy mildew, only water the soil, not the plants themselves and preferably in the mornings. The disease spreads more easily on wet foliage in the dark. This goes for many vegies but especially peas and other legumes, also members of the cucumber and pumpkin family (cucurbits) and tomato and potato family plants. (solanums).
The peas will eventually succumb to the mildew as the season ends but the fungicide and good watering practice will slow it down.
Your first attempt at growing something is already a success by the way. Simply because of the fact that you are out there doing it.